A Mother's Journey Through Grief

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Wedding Dreams Shattered by Grief

In time, grief always resurfaces. Just as waves will always crash onto the shore, the pain of child loss always comes crashing into a bereaved parent. My ocean of grief has been more calm lately, but this does not diminish the difficulties I will continue to experience, especially during important moments of my life.

Prince Charming and I have finally begun planning our wedding. Ever since I was forced to say goodbye to Bella, I have minimized the importance of this day: my wedding day.

There are many sides to child-loss no one thinks about. One of the many difficult things I had to do in preparation to say a final goodbye to my baby was pick out a dress. We were planning a princess party to celebrate the life of my angel-princess. In my mind, the dress needed to be perfect and it didn’t matter how much it cost. My mantra helped me through the process, which I repeated again and again: “the day I say goodbye to my baby girl is the most important day of my life, even more important than my wedding day.” I found the perfect dress as I learned that people can have an enormous amount of compassion when dealing with a grief stricken mother.

My mantra that day was never forgotten and has lead me to hold back on my vision of my wedding day. As I looked in the mirror and stared at myself in the most beautiful white gown I have ever seen, I felt like a princess! Suddenly, grief lodged its way into my throat. “I can’t justify buying this dress; it’s too expensive and I have already purchased the most important dress I will ever wear.” I choked on my grief as I closed the door on my perfect dress that I had envisioned since my childhood.

I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring out of my soul. I felt robbed of the most important day of my life. The excitement I felt about our wedding quickly turned into deep sorrow.

After Bella’s transition, my view of weddings changed; I decided they weren’t important and was very uncomfortable attending weddings. I am now understanding that this is part of my grief. Weddings are important and my wedding day is no exception, but after losing a child, no day is viewed quite the same as it was pre-loss. The reality of this cut through my veins as grief drained from my pores.

Now that I’m planning my wedding, I feel my beliefs that held me up through the hardest days of my life are pulling me under the ocean and I’m drowning. I am now grieving the wedding day I had once imagined.

I close my eyes and see Prince Charming, my gorgeous groom. I see our family before us. I see our loving parents and my dear grandmother. I see our siblings and all of our nieces and nephews. I see our handsome sons and our beautiful daughter. But no I matter how hard I look, I can’t see my angel, Bella. She’s with us and we can both feel her, but my human eyes can’t see her. My heart aches as a single tear rolls down my cheek.

Child-loss changes everything! Sometimes we cope by making things out to be less important than they really are. Now that the planning has begun, I am finally able to admit how important this day is to me. I will only get married once and I vow to make it a day I will never forget.

I may have already found the most important dress I will ever wear for the most important goodbye, but I am now giving myself permission to find an equally important dress for the most important hello of my life.

As I kiss my new husband and am introduced as his Mrs., it won’t matter to him if I’m wearing a beautiful white gown or if I’m dressed in rags. What will matter is that we have each other until the end of time. He will think I am beautiful no matter what, but my grieving heart needs to FEEL beautiful. The dress isn’t for him; it’s for ME! And once I find that perfect dress, I will put all my love for Bella inside of it. I will fill it with joy so that on our wedding day when I can’t see Bella in the crowd, I can look down at my dress and be reminded that she is with us.

For grieving parents, the most important days of our life that should be filled with nothing but happiness are the most difficult to get through. It’s important to look for ways to make those days a little easier.